SOMERVILLE, N.J. – Jayson Williams’ frantic brother told a 911 dispatcher that a limo driver shot himself after he “picked up a loaded gun and he didn’t know what he was doing,” jurors heard yesterday on an tape played at the ex-NBA star’s manslaughter trial.

“Yeah, this man, he just got shot,” Victor Williams told 911 operator Celeste Timberlake early Feb. 14, 2002, about 20 minutes after driver Costas “Gus” Christofi actually had been shot and killed by Jayson Williams. “He picked up a gun that was loaded and it shot him. Please hurry up, ma’am.”

Timberlake later asked – “He did shoot himself?”

“Yes,” replied Victor Williams, who was calling from his brother’s Alexandria Township, N.J., mansion, with similarly distressed voices audible in the background.

Prosecutors have said Victor Williams, Jayson’s adopted brother, actually was sleeping when, in another room, Jayson Williams unintentionally shot Christofi, 55, in the chest when he flipped shut a 12-gauge Browning under-over shotgun that had one shell in the lower barrel.

They also have said that it was Jayson Williams, 35, who was boozing that night, not the man whom the former N.J. Net had hired to drive some guests to his mansion. It is unknown if Victor was aware that he was giving misleading information on the 911 call – which led to State Police being dispatched to the scene – but prosecutors claim that other people at his house at first intentionally lied to police about how Christofi came to be shot, saying it was self-inflicted.

Yesterday, jurors saw a photo of a dead Christofi lying on a slab, with a State Police detective leveling a similar shotgun at the driver’s chest while pulling his right hand up toward the trigger, which remained a half-foot or more from his grasp.

“There was no way the victim, Mr. Christofi, could have reached up his arm . . . to the trigger,” testified that detective, John Garkowski.

He earlier said that when he saw Christofi’s gunshot wound at the house he quickly concluded that it was “anything but a contact wound” that one would expect from a self-inflicted shot, but instead appeared to have been some distance from the weapon when it fired.

Garkowski also testified that no fingerprints were found on the shotgun, which is consistent with the prosecution’s claim that someone toweled off the gun to get rid of Williams’ prints after the shooting.

The detective videotaped Williams’ house hours after the shooting, and the footage included scenes of Christofi lying on an Oriental carpet. On a television screen in court appeared shots of the sprawling mansion, its huge rooms, expensive decor, and a kidney-shaped indoor pool adjacent to an indoor basketball court.

—-

Frantic call

Excerptsof the transcript of the 911 emergency call from Jayson Williams’ brother, Victor, immediately after the Feb. 14, 2002, shooting of limousine driver Costas “Gus” Christofi at the Williams house.

Victor Williams: Ma’am, this man has just got shot, he picked up a gun that was loaded and it shot him. Please hurry up, man.

Dispatcher: All right, all right, is he conscious?

V. Williams: Yes, but he’s out. He’s down on the ground.

*

Dispatcher: Sir, do you have a description of the person that shot him?

V. Williams: No! He shot himself. He took a gun out of the (inaudible) …